Chicken Coops for Sale in Shirley Mills, Maine
Chicken Coops for Sale in Shirley Mills, Maine
Build Your Own Chicken Coop – A story of chickens
So WAY back in March…Josh and I had a talk with the boys and we decided as a family that we would get some chickens. We were all pretty excited about this new adventure and couldn’t wait to get started! At the beginning of April we headed over to to figure out what we would need and how many chickens we wanted. They had a very helpful employee who told us everything we would need to know about taking care of our chickens. Also, lucky for us we had Housewife Gena available to answer any questions we might have!
The boys were excited to help pick out the chickens and were even more excited when the IFA staff told us the chicks needed to be held lots and lots so they would be used to the kids. 🙂� After about an hour there we came home with…
Six adorable chicks! Because we are a family of five we decided to get two chickens that are said to lay daily and four chickens that lay 3-4 times a week. We figured that would be plenty of eggs for us!
A couple weeks later, IFA did an Easter Egg Hunt. Now being a farm supply store, they don’t give away just candy in their eggs, they also give away…you guessed it CHICKENS! (And bunnies and ducks and turkeys) Housewife Jenn’s kids ended up with four leghorn chicks! Another family in our ward decided they didn’t need any extra chickens and gave Jenn’s family another two chicks! Since we were already building a coop for our chicks, we offered to let Jenn’s family’s chicks live with ours.
So here are the little chicks! Happy under their heat lamp and eating away! 🙂�
While our chicks were perfectly happy in the garage, in their tote…it quickly got too small for 12 chicks. As soon as they were ready, we transferred them to the backyard to a makeshift coop. I did not take a picture of the makeshift coop because…well it was pretty sad. It served it’s purpose and the chickens loved it but it was not anything you’d want to show off! With that in mind, Josh began the process of building a coop for our chickens. We saw a coop at IFA that we thought looked great! However, it was $600.00. As much as we liked our chickens…we didn’t $600.00 like them!
So Josh took a few measurements and we sketched out what we wanted for our chickens, using the IFA coop as inspiration. We took a trip to Lowe’s to price out our materials. We were lucky enough that we had left over wood, Jenn’s family had left over wood and a family a few houses down from us reroofed their house and donated their left over roofing supplies to us! It was our goal to use as many materials as we already had and keep the cost as low as possible!
Let me say now…Josh and I have never “built” anything. Really. This was quite an adventure for us (mostly Josh since he did almost all of the work) and I’m so happy with how it all turned out!
He started with the base for the coop itself. We wanted to make sure that there was enough clearance for the chickens to use under the coop as part of the chicken run.
He used four 3″ screws in each post to make sure it was nice and sturdy.
Wall framing almost done!
Look what happens when you start building a coop…your chickens start laying eggs! 🙂� (So far Jenn’s chickens are the only ones laying. Lucky for us, our chickens are DUAL chickens so if they don’t get to laying…they going to get to frying!)
The framing completed from two angles.
Up go the walls!
Putting in the hinged door for collecting eggs.
Getting the eggs out will be a breeze! 🙂�
A few angles of the walls all up and the plywood for the roof up. As you can see, our coop has skylights…that’s how we roll.
First coat of paint and the tar paper on the roof. You may wonder why we chose this color for the coop. Well to be completely honest, we picked colors we wanted to paint our house and figured the coop would be the perfect guinea pig to see if we like the colors! 🙂� The coop is Valspar’s Royal Gray. (I know, it looks blue to me too!)
For the door we chose Valspar’s Kettle Black. It has blue undertones so it goes really well with the Royal Gray.
The roof complete with the windows in. I’ve seen lots of super cute coops with real glass windows. It was less expensive ($1.29 a pane) to just use plexiglass. And it worked perfectly!
The coop with the final coat of paint, windows/hardware on and trim put up.
The door on the coop. We chose to put a large door on the side to make it easier to clean out for us. And I have to say that it makes it look way cuter! 🙂�
The Roosting bar inside the coop.
Trim all painted and mesh put around the bottom of the coop.
The nesting boxes. The only thing I didn’t get a picture of was the peel and stick tiles that we put on the bottom of the coop. They were only $0.02 a tile! I think we ended up using about 14 tiles.
The finished product with the happy chickens inside!
Another angle. After the coop itself was completed. Josh used 2 x 2’s and 2 x 3’s to build the frame for the yard and another, outdoor roosting bar. We also added in the ramp for the chickens to get into the coop. I’m super proud of Josh for all of his hard work and I’m really excited for how amazing it turned out!! Our total cost for the entire coop…every last nail, hinge, can of paint, everything was about $290.00. And the best part is the chicken coop and run are significantly bigger than the one at IFA. 🙂� So HUGE round of applause for Josh and the coop!
UPDATE: Hello dear readers!!! This has been a long time coming, but this post is going to get a HUGE revamp! With having babies and life getting in the way, I’ve neglected this post and getting out the information that I should. I am going to be working on updating this post with as much information on the building and materials as I can. We didn’t keep super great track of all the materials we used, but I will do the best I can to give you as much info as possible! Thank you all again for loving this project!
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Chicken Coop Large in Shirley Mills, Maine
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Shirley Mills Maine" into any one of the numerous search engines and a wealth of information will pop up. This information will provide links to other websites that will be informative and will provide the right direction for finding Shirley Mills Maine chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Shirley Mills, Maine With the huge rise in poultry maintaining there has actually been an equally huge increase in the range of fowl materiel for sale. Fowl real estate is a case in point. It's additionally a classic example of the excellent old bandwagon being got on as various potential chicken real estate professionals market a variety of accommodation asserting to be the ideal option to your chicken real estate needs. Frequently the cost looks attractive, the house looks attractive, heck even the clean-cut family members standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Certainly they understand a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are several cheap and awful coops swamping the marketplace. I understand this as I've tested a variety of them in the area, and also seen a ewe run directly via one when the feed pail appeared. The result was only an expensive stack of fire wood as well as a small group of bemused and also now homeless bantams.
Chicken Coop Plans Pdf in Shirley Mills, Maine
Usually these standardized models are built of quick grown hardwood - come the very first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either barricading a door that won't close, or ripping the doorway furniture off in a vain attempt to launch the squawking residents. The very first cozy day means the timber dries and cracks, the felt roof covering bubbles and also boils, and come nightfall the hens refuse to go in. This is not due to their disappointment at the decline of their when eye-catching property however considering that the hovel is currently a haven for, as well as probably crawling with, the fowl keeper's bane, red mite. Add that it stated on the blurb that it would fit 4 large hens when that stocking thickness was based upon the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and also just what are you left with? A couple of joints and also some kindling. A good coop for thee to 4 birds need to cost you approximately ₤ 300 though this can depend on whether you elect for a cost-free standing house or one with a run affixed. Presuming you are varying your birds in a huge area as well as the pop hole door allows sufficient for the type you maintain, after that the primary needs of housing boil down to 3 points which will specify the variety of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes as well as ventilation. The majority of breeds of chicken will perch when they visit roost at night, this perch needs to preferably be 5-8cm broad with smoothed off edges so the foot rests conveniently on it. The perch must be more than the nest box entrance as chickens will also normally look for the highest point to perch. A perch below that will certainly have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they create one of the most poo) causing stained eggs the following day. They shouldn't however be so high off the flooring of the house that leg injuries might occur when the bird comes down in the morning. Chickens require concerning 20cm of perch each (in little types this is undoubtedly much less), plus if more than one perch is installed in your house they need to be greater than 30cm apart. They will hunker up with their neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird ahead. Ideally the house needs to have a least one nest box for every single three birds as well as these need to be off the ground and in the darkest location of your home. The house ought to have adequate air flow: without it then condensation will certainly accumulate every night, even in the coldest of weather. Know, ventilation deals with the concept of warm and comfortable air leaving through a high space attracting cooler air in from a lower void - it's not a set of holes on other wall surfaces of the house as well as at the same level, this is exactly what's referred to as a draught. If you have a house with a run attached after that the factors above are still true, however you need to likewise take into consideration the run size. The EU optimum lawful stocking density for a complimentary variety bird is (and also allow's face it, one of the motivations for keeping some chickens in your home is perhaps boosted or better well-being) 2,500 birds per hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m made even. Take a close consider a few of the deal houses - it could well be the house has the right perches, proper air flow and adequate nest boxes for a practical number of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized item of ground to spend the day on? Therefore as the stating goes, "you obtain just what you spend for". You may think you've got hold of a deal, yet you and also your flock can rue the day you did. Purchase the right house as well as it will certainly last for a couple of years, otherwise longer offered the proper treatment. Ultimately your chicken as well as your poultry maintaining experience will be a lot the far better for it.diy coops
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